“Good Chance create an atmosphere of love, hope and joy, where everyone is a member of the family, where everyone can express themselves and enjoy being themselves.....where everyone deserves a good chance.” 

— Baraa Halabieh, writer and regular visitor to Good Chance Calais

Good Chance works with a wide range of people, including: the talented people we meet and engage with in our domes inside and alongside refugee camps; audiences and local communities; and the partner artists and volunteers with whom we deliver our work.

To date, Good Chance has:

Engaged more than 22,500 people from across the world in our theatre domes.

Reached over 80,000 audience members through performances of The Jungle.

Worked with over 600 volunteers and artists from over 20 countries.

Produced over 55 Hope Shows in the domes with performers from across the world.

ANNUAL REPORT

For more information on our work over the past year, please see the Good Chance Annual Report for 2016-2017 here.

In the dome

>> The people we meet and work with in our theatres tell us that our space and the activities and workshops give them a sense of purpose, happiness, identity, community and hope.

"I have not smiled I have not laughed for eight years. Now I have come to Good Chance I can laugh. I can be happy."

“I wish to be here and contribute. When you are a refugee, you don’t know what to do. When the refugee is tired, he has nothing. But this [theatre] will help us to be happy. To not be angry.”

“The refugee who sits alone, he does not just need food, or some materials, he needs also hope. Good Chance Theatre gives hope. You need to feel you are not alone, you need to feel someone sits beside you, he cares about you.”

“I love Good Chance, as soon as I enter the dome I get happy. It is my favourite place in Paris. I am very stressed but when I am there I get happy because I meet all different kinds of people. What they are doing is very important to us because we have been through a lot on the way to Paris, so we need these kinds of things to help relieve our stress.”

“I really thank the people who organise this great theatre. And we will know many things by it. For example, show different cultures, different people with different mind and language as well. So it doesn’t matter how you look like, just be the best version of yourself.”

Audiences

>> Our audiences tell us that our work contributes towards greater understanding from local residents about immigrants and refugees newly arrived in their communities, highlighting their individual identities and the unique stories they have to tell.

HOPE SHOWs:

“We would never have thought about this if we hadn’t come to the Hope Show. You realise how segregated Paris is, how in the nice parts there are no refugees, they are hidden away. But we’ve now been talking with our friends about how France should be doing more to help integrate people, how amazing Good Chance is for bringing people together, for helping us think about these things. These people are people, and shouldn’t be treated any differently.”

“The show yesterday was spectacular and one of the most inspiring and touching thing I ever saw. I will never forget that joy and exaltation both on stage and in the crowd. I really got to see how transformative the power of art could be and how deeply meaningful these windows of Hope and infinite possibilities were for the migrants. Even if those are small windows.”

“I’m not sure if I’ve ever been more affected by a piece of performance as I was by the Hope Show at Good Chance today. People with nothing, in a country that is not their own, with no idea where they’ll be tomorrow or next week, giving so much joy to others. Incredible.”

THE JUNGLE:

“Above all, the play draws on the humane impulse at the heart of theatre: the urge to understand and empathise with others.” Financial Times on The Jungle

“This devastating, uplifting show celebrates the human capacity to build something out of nothing, to work together and try to make a difference. Let’s listen and learn.” The Guardian on The Jungle

“A varied programme of music, drama, poetry, movement and debate, for and by the inhabitants of the camp, occupies the Good Chance theatre six days a week. All by itself it proclaims that life without culture is nothing but biology in survival mode.”

— Sir Tom Stoppard in The Sunday Times

Artists and volunteers

>> Our partner artists and volunteers tell us that working with Good Chance has impacted the way in which they see the world and how they will make art in the future.

“This sense of sharing and of building something together, this ‘human connection’, this meaningful activity or activation should be everyday of our life.”

“Our minds fly there every day since we left, because something important is happening there, we have seen it, we have felt it, we contributed to it… It is the saving power of theatre. It saves us all from the poverty of spirit, from the cowardice of not going for the big challenges…. it saves us from keeping walls among each other, from giving up on humanity and on art, it saves us from working and behaving at a lower grade and thinking small. That’s what we have seen.”

“Seeing the reality outside of the theatre and then seeing the enthusiasm, friendship and pure creativity inside was an affirming thing to see. It became obvious to me how much charities such as this are so necessary - giving the refugees a space and a vessel to express themselves and be proud of what they create, seems just as important as food and a bed.”

“Good Chance’s work has ushered them into a territory exposing them to and consequently working with some of the world’s most unexpected, unsung exquisite world musicians and artists of our time. Where the heart of their humanitarian work has been about one thing, it has led them to an awareness of talented beings that add extra value to the importance of each individual life and the need to be kind. Almost unintentionally, Good Chance have found themselves doing more, effortlessly. And they are undoubtedly the best people currently to do this.”